Wall Street opens higher with oil nearing $50 a barrel

NEW YORK (AA) - Wall Street opened higher Wednesday with oil prices climbing close to the $50 per barrel threshold, along with rising optimism in the market.

The Dow Jones rose 60 points to begin the day at 17,766 points. The S&P 500 increased 8 points to open at 2,084, while the Nasdaq was up 16 points to begin the day at 4,877.

At the opening bell, the American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 1.5 percent to $49.32 per barrel and the international benchmark Brent crude rose 1.7 percent to $49.47 a barrel.

If the U.S.' weekly crude oil inventories, which will be announced on Wednesday, come below expectations, oil prices can ram the $50 per barrel mark.

Meanwhile, analysts point to the increasing optimism among investors that the economy can resist a rate hike by the Federal Reserve, if the bank raises interest rates in June or July.

With such optimism, Wall Street rallied on Tuesday, as the indexes posted their biggest daily gain since March.

At Tuesday's closing the Dow soared 213 points, and the S&P 500 climbed 28 points to mark their biggest single-day increase since March 11. In addition, the Nasdaq jumped 95 points to record its largest daily increase since March 1.